


airplanes.

by babybrotherdean



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Airplanes, Attempted Sexual Assault, Childhood Trauma, Dean's Fear of Flying, Gen, Phobias, Young Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 11:32:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6468607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybrotherdean/pseuds/babybrotherdean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is scared of flying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. dean.

**Author's Note:**

> It occurred to me that Dean's fear of flying is never really explored, in canon _or_ fanon. And while it's probably just a totally rational fear of being in a flying metal tube of death... well, why not make it horrible?
> 
> Please mind the warnings. Nothing actually _happens,_ but if childhood trauma and a very bad man trying to do a very bad thing are going to make you too uncomfortable, then don't read this (or at the very least, tread lightly).

“Momma,” Dean whispers, fingers curling a little tighter around the seat cushion between his legs. He still feels unsteady, even with the seatbelt tight across his lap and all the reassurances that he’d been given on his way onto the plane. Momma had even taken him up to the front to visit the pilot in the cockpit, but mostly all the blinking lights just worried him more. “Gotta _go_.”

His momma’s fast asleep, though, one arm resting lightly across her middle while the other occupies the divider between them. Even asleep, she’s holding Dean’s hand, fingers loose and warm around his like she’s trying to keep him safe. She’s relaxed and pretty and soft, and Dean doesn’t want to disturb her knowing how tired she is all the time. Daddy tells him it’s because of the new baby growing in her belly, but it’s still so flat that Dean doesn’t really believe him.

But the baby, pretend or otherwise, is not Dean’s primary concern right now. Even though he made sure to go potty before they boarded, he must’ve had one too many boxes of apple juice because he’s squirming in his seat now with the increasingly pressing need to pee. He looks at his momma one more time, in the seat between him and the aisle, and takes a deep breath. He’s a big boy, already three whole years old. He can go to the bathroom all by himself, right? Knows how to wipe and everything.

Getting past his momma is the challenge. He’s careful to be extra-quiet when he undoes his seatbelt, just like the nice lady showed them before they took off, and slips out of his seat, bracing himself with one hand against the one in front of him. He’s just tiny enough to squeeze past her legs, and he smiles big once he’s free in the little centre corridor, setting his sights on the back end of the plane and starting to walk.

Dean’s focus is on his destination but he manages a couple shy little smiles for the people who meet his eyes on the way down. An old lady who coos at him, a tired-looking stewardess. None of them try to stop him, and it doesn’t take long to find the single bathroom tucked away in the back of the plane. He stands up on his tip-toes and squints at the little green picture below the handle. Green means go, so he reaches up as high as he can, trying to open the door, and can’t quite make it-

“Here, let me help.” 

Dean jumps a little, startled, cranes his neck back to look up towards the voice. It’s a man, probably Daddy’s age, slick blond hair and eyes that have him feeling pinned in place, a butterfly stretched out by its wings. 

The man smiles at him a little too close and reaches out to grab the handle of the door, Dean’s eyes following the movement. “Awful little to be wandering on your own, aren’t you? Can’t even reach the door by yourself.”

Dean looks down and away. He’s not sure he wants to visit the bathroom anymore. “Thank you,” he mumbles, because his momma’s raised him to know his manners. That doesn’t mean he’s going to look up at the man again anytime soon, and he starts forward to slip into the bathroom, just hoping he’ll be able to lock the door inside and be on his own again. 

Everything after that happens too fast for him to react, because the man is big and strong and Dean is small and scared and _alone_ , and there’s no one this far back in the plane to see.

He’s kneed in the back, would have cried out were it not for the big hand that grabs for his face, covering his mouth with rough fingertips pressing bruises into his jaw. He’s forced inside, doesn’t have time to do much of anything before he’s tripping over himself, throws his arms out and barely catches his balance on the toilet.

The door closes hard and Dean is not alone.

“You’re going to be calm,” the man’s voice says, low and dangerous and too close, pressed up behind Dean. He can’t breathe around the hand on his face, covers up his nose and his mouth and it’s hot and too tight and he’s starting to cry. “And you’re going to be quiet. And maybe it’ll turn out alright for you, kid. Understand?”

He _doesn’t_. He doesn’t know what’s going on, or who this man is, but he’s scared and he’s shaking and he’s managed to wet himself during the brief struggle, a warm stream that’s still trickling down his leg. Dean’s breathing too hard, little chest heaving, and then he’s being forced up against the toilet while the man presses up behind him, grunts low.

“Good.”

The grip on his jaw doesn’t loosen any and there’s some shuffling behind him that Dean can’t identify, and that he doesn’t want to. The man’s hand is sweaty and Dean is starting to panic and that’s when he tries to scream, starts to thrash around in what little space he has because this is a bad man, a bad man who wants to hurt him and he doesn’t know much but his momma and daddy made sure he knew this.

It feels like some kind of magic when the whole _plane_ shakes, and the man curses, the sort of word that Momma scolds Daddy for using, and his grip tightens on Dean. The air is driven out of Dean’s chest when he’s bent over the toilet, forced to scrabble at the smooth seat for some kind of grip and he can’t _do_ this, he can’t; he’s scared and he wants-

“Mommy!”

The scream is barely audible around the man’s hand and Dean’s sobbing now, hiccuping and choking and gasping for breath and even if he wanted to listen to the man, the man who’s got a hand fumbling at Dean’s pants, he doesn’t think he’d be able to stay quiet, forced into a panic state that’s more animal than human.

Dean isn’t the only one screaming, though, and when he finally makes himself listen to the pounding on the door, he just cries harder.

“Open the _fucking_ door!” And he’s never heard her this angry and scared but it’s his momma, his momma who’s trying to get in and now the man is panicking, too, different than Dean. “Open this door, you son of a bitch, and give me back my son!”

The door’s thrown open all at once and everything gets kind of blurry after that.

Dean remembers slipping, knocking his head against the toilet seat when the man is yanked out of the bathroom. Remembers screaming and crying and panic, people he doesn’t know who are angry now, too. His momma above all of them, just as pretty as the guardian angels she tells him stories about.

More than anything, though, he remembers finally returning to her arms. Remembers tears in her eyes before she hugged him close, whispering apologies and promises and prayers that all slur together in his mind, the way she snapped at everyone who got too close to him. Didn’t even set him down when a doctor showed up to look at his head.

He also remembers her humming. Just low, just soft like she’s singing him to sleep, and Dean lets it happen. Tries to wipe away everything besides the sound of her voice.

He doesn’t even notice that it works.

It’s just his momma’s voice that lingers, the humming he can feel in his whole body that clings and seals the memory, that overwrites everything else. That nudges aside the pain and the panic and the fear. 

He doesn’t set foot on another plane until he’s twenty-six years old.

//

“You humming Metallica?”

Dean doesn’t remember much. Pressure in his ears and turbulence and a crushing, suffocating kind of fear.

Breathes out slow and opens his eyes to glance at Sam.

“Calms me down.”


	2. mary.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary has never liked flying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part one of Mary's two-part POV. Have fun.

Of course she notices. She’s been raised to notice.

Mary has never been a fan of flying. Planes are too enclosed and too vulnerable; small spaces and no escape and she can’t be armed when she boards. She hasn’t hunted in years but it’s instinct and habit that’s burrowed deep under her skin, driving her from dangerous situations because she knows better.

But Dean is only three years old, and John’s mother lives in Maine. It’s a twenty-three hour drive without stops and Mary doesn’t think her son is up for it, no matter how hard he tries to make her happy. She doesn’t want to force him to deal with that, and John insists that flying will be more comfortable, regardless. He’s caught up with work and won’t be able to join them for another couple days, but she let him talk her into flying down early with Dean and she’s already regretting it.

A man has been watching Dean since they made it to their departure gate. He’s good, subtle- but he’s not better than she is, and she hugs Dean a little tighter where her baby’s dozing in her lap. They’re boarding in a couple minutes and her skin is crawling knowing that the man will probably be on the same flight as them. At least she’ll be able to keep an eye on Dean the whole time. It’s a three-hour flight and she isn’t going to let anything happen.

She can’t.

All her focus goes into distracting Dean. He’s nervous while they’re boarding, and a quick smile grants the both of them a trip to the cockpit. It’s something to occupy her son and something to throw off the man who’d been watching him; perhaps he won’t be able to see where they’re sitting if they wait to head to their seats. Dean’s still clinging to her by the time they make their way back into the plane’s body, and Mary keeps her eyes carefully forward.

She doesn’t miss where the man is sitting, a mere four rows behind them. It’ll have to be enough.

The plane takes off and she holds Dean’s hand and everything seems like it’s going to be alright. Three hours in the air, and she won’t have to worry about the man ever again.

Mary doesn’t bet on falling asleep.

She doesn’t mean to. But caring for a three-year-old while he husband works is taxing enough without the added strain of a new baby on the way- saps more of her energy than she can afford right now and it costs her, has her dozing off with Dean tucked into the window seat halfway through the flight.

Mary doesn’t stir until they hit some turbulence and she’s shaken out of her doze, blinks the blur out of her eyes and looks down to Dean-

To where Dean _isn’t_.

She doesn’t think. She just reacts.

There aren’t exactly a whole lot of places for a toddler to go on a plane of this size, so she turns for the back end right away. Knows that her little boy is smart enough to find the bathroom by himself and it’s all she can do not to shove an attendant out of her path on the way down.

The man’s seat is empty and she walks a little faster.

The bathroom door is locked and there’s a muffled struggle inside and Mary. sees. red.

“Open the _fucking door!_ ”

There isn’t time to think, or to listen to the attendant calling for her attention, sounding increasingly panicked. All that exists is the door that stands between Mary and the man who is trying to hurt her baby boy, and it blurs into screaming and clawing and bloodied fingernails and she damn near rips the thing of its hinges.

She’s a hurricane, and when the door is gone and the man tries to take a swing at her, the desperate attack of a cornered animal _(a cornered monster)_ , shs strikes, breaks his nose in a crunch of cartilage and a shout of pain before yanking him out, vision tinted crimson and ready to put him down.

Mary doesn’t know who stops her, but someone if separating them both and holding her back, blood under her fingernails and something wild that’s got its claws in her heart, that’s got her throwing the hands off her and half-lunging for the man on the ground and. Hesitating.

Hears muffled sobs and terrified whimpers and comes back to herself all at once.

Dean.

He’s still in the bathroom, curled in on himself with his arms covering his head, shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. Hiccups and trembles and looking at him shatters Mary’s heart. 

“Oh, baby,” she whispers, and no one tries to stop her when she goes in after him, gathering him up in her arms like he’s made of glass. Might as well be. He damn near flinches away but he must recognize her because then he clings, tiny fingers burying themselves in her shirt and she hugs him tight, ignore his wet pants and the snot and the tears because he’s _safe_.

“You’re okay now, Dean,” she tells him, just soft, whispers into his hair while she rocks him in her arms. “I’m here, baby, I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you. Mommy’s here.”

Dean doesn’t respond but he buries his face in her neck and shivers. Mary just hugs him tighter and ignores the world around her because none of it _matters_.

She’s always sung to Dean, and she starts humming now, rocks him back and forth and makes up a tune from the radio. Closes her eyes.

The police are waiting when they land. Dean’s in no shape to talk to anyone so Mary speaks for him, lets her baby cling to her while she tells them what happened. Barely remembers to call her mother-in-law to let her know they’re going to be late. 

Dean won’t even let the doctor touch him, and Mary is charged with keeping an eye on him. He’s got a bump on his head and she knows how to apply ice and that’s all she needs to know before leaving the airport, heading to the closest, cleanest hotel she can find.

Millie is going to have to wait, because Dean needs time and Mary doesn’t want anyone else near him right now. 

She doesn’t sleep that night, and Dean wakes up crying too many times.

//

The man’s name is Eric Michaels and when they finally make it to Millie’s, Mary does something she hasn’t done in years. She leaves Dean with his father and slips into a skin she hasn’t worn since her parents were killed and she ran away from her heritage to be with John and raise a family.

She takes a deep breath and prepares for a hunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go.

**Author's Note:**

> I've got no excuse for this.
> 
> I've got a second part planned, hopefully finishing it up today- so keep an eye out?
> 
> (Also- the song Dean hums in Phantom Traveller isn't actually released until 2004, while this story takes place in about 1982, but. I'm just. Ignoring that. For the sake of more pain.)


End file.
